


Carry Me Out of This Mess

by kuumai



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Hinata Shouyou Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Mid-Canon, POV Hinata Shouyou, Season/Series 02, hinata has anxiety??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuumai/pseuds/kuumai
Summary: It starts with this: Hinata oversleeps.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou & Sawamura Daichi, Hinata Shouyou & Yachi Hitoka
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	Carry Me Out of This Mess

It starts with this: Hinata oversleeps.

That’s not the entire reason, to be fair. Hinata has always been an easily anxious person, but he’s equally thick-skinned and optimistic, so it requires an outside force to actually cause him to have a bad day. And thus, oversleeping is likely what starts it.

Hinata opens his eyes of his own accord, not to his alarm, and he sits up straight in bed, adrenaline waking him up fully. Then, he sees that he’s woken up with plenty of time to get to homeroom, and he slumps in relief.

He leans over to his bedside table and flicks on the lamp. His phone lights up with a notification—a message from Kageyama, swearing up and down at him. There are six other messages from Kageyama, plus one from Yachi and one from Daichi, both asking where he is.

Hinata’s heart drops to his stomach. They have morning practice today. How clueless must he be to forget that?

Throwing his sheets off of him, Hinata unlocks his phone with one hand and shoves the papers from his desk into his backpack with the other. He sends a short response to Yachi that explains that he overslept, figuring she’s the most likely to see it if they’re in the middle of practice.

Hinata nearly knocks over his sister in the rush from his room to the bathroom. She pouts and begins to say something to him, but he ignores her.

He can make the end of practice if he goes quickly, Hinata reasons to himself as he brushes his teeth. Especially if he wears his practice clothes on the ride there.

So he does exactly that, and somehow he sprints up to the locker room just as the last of the club members are leaving. Fortunately, it’s just the second years. If Kageyama were there, he’d definitely lay into Hinata.

“Shoyo!” Nishinoya greets with a smile, Tanaka on his heels.

“Wah! I’m so sorry for being late!” Hinata exclaims, breathing quickly from running there. “I overslept, and I thought I could make it in time to practice at least a little, but—”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Tanaka, slapping Hinata on the back cheerily. “But you should probably get changed if you want to make it to class in time.”

He’s right, so Hinata goes to change as quickly as possible. He nearly gets stuck in his t-shirt, and is thankful no one else is in the room to judge him for angrily throwing it on the ground once he finally escapes it. 

Hinata walks out of the locker room while buttoning up his shirt and jogs toward the school building. The campus is worryingly empty. 

He hopes he can slip into his classroom at least somewhat undetected, but no such luck. He opens the door to a full classroom of students looking at him. 

“Nice of you to finally join us,” his teacher says.

“Sorry, sensei,” Hinata mutters, heading to his seat.

“Might want to fix your jacket,” says one of the guys who sits near Hinata. The class dissolves into laughter as Hinata looks down at his jacket, which is buttoned one button off. He slips into his seat, face burning with embarrassment as he swiftly fixes them. 

The teacher halfheartedly scolds the class for laughing before continuing with whatever he was talking about. Hinata tries and fails to pay attention.

When they switch from Japanese class to science, Hinata avoids attracting any more attention to himself by slouching over his phone. He types out a message to Kenma.

_I overslept and missed morning practice today!!! Waaahhhh!!!!!_

Kenma responds almost immediately.

_it’s not a big deal to miss one practice_

Hinata gives a small smile. His and Kenma’s philosophies on volleyball are vastly different.

_Sure it’s a big deal!! Sorry I don’t play hookie all the time like you ヽ(｀⌒´メ)ノ_

Kenma doesn’t reply this time, so Hinata tucks his phone into his bag as the lesson begins and tries desperately to absorb whatever is going on in science now. 

Hinata realizes halfway through the third class that he hasn’t eaten anything yet today, and by lunch he’s grown dizzy with hunger. Almost immediately after the teacher leaves, Kageyama is looming over Hinata’s desk. 

“I slept through my alarm,” Hinata says before he can get a word in.

“Why’d you ignore my messages?” Kageyama asks.

“I already told Yachi-san where I was. I figure she’d let all of you know.”

“She did. You still didn’t have to ignore them.”

“Dude, if you’re just going to argue with me for no reason like usual, I’m not in the mood for it today,” Hinata says. He stuffs bread into his mouth to avoid a continued conversation.

Kageyama grumbles something unintelligible and leaves, and Hinata slides down in his seat. He doesn’t bother to hunt down Yachi or Yamaguchi for the rest of the lunch period. He’s unusually happy to be left alone. 

With a full meal under his belt, the last classes of the day pass more smoothly, and Hinata begins to feel guilty for being so snappish with Kageyama. But, no, Hinata was no more rude to Kageyama than Kageyama is to him on any given day. It’s fine. He doesn’t have to feel bad. 

When Hinata walks into the gym that afternoon, clad in his t-shirt and shorts, Tsukishima greets him with “Look who decided to show up.” Yamaguchi, who is stretching nearby, snickers.

Hinata glares at Tsukishima, but he doesn’t have the energy to get up in his face like usual. 

Kageyama appears behind Hinata suddenly, and Hinata nearly jumps out of his skin. 

“Your majesty,” Tsukishima says with a tilt of his head, and Hinata leaps away from the doorway to let Kageyama pass. 

Hinata doesn’t bother to point out that this is another win for him. Kageyama doesn’t acknowledge any of them. 

And that’s essentially how the entirety of practice goes. Kageyama still gives him tosses, but he won’t look him in the eye. Even when they hit the new style of quick, and Hinata’s chest swells with pride, Kageyama is completely silent. 

The guilt from earlier returns like a weight pressing on his chest. He didn’t think Kageyama would be that upset. Did Hinata say something really rude? Maybe he doesn’t remember the conversation correctly. It has been a few hours. He’s usually careful of what’s off-limits when bantering with Kageyama, but he was pretty hungry at the time. He might’ve said something that actually upset him.

“Look alive, Hinata,” Daichi calls. 

“Sorry, captain,” says Hinata. He shakes the tension out of his arms and prays away the tight feeling in his chest. He’s fine. He’s just overthinking.

At least no one besides Tsukishima mentions Hinata missing the morning practice.

He manages to survive the rest of practice without spacing out, and soon he is walking his bicycle down the hill outside school, a careful distance behind Tsukishima and Yamaguchi. 

As he passes Ukai’s store, a voice calls, “Hinata!”

Hinata stops abruptly and turns in the direction of the voice, surprised. “Oh, captain.”

Daichi grins and waves at him with one hand, holding a paper bag in the other. Hinata is surprised to see that Asahi and Suga aren’t with him today.

“Hey, you seemed pretty out of it during practice.”

Hinata cringes. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s alright. Everyone has off days. I wanted to give you this, actually.” Daichi holds out the paper bag.

Hinata takes it and looks inside the bag, and the steam from a couple pork buns escapes it. His eyebrows shoot up. “Ah! Really? Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Daichi says with a smile. “I thought it might cheer you up.”

“It does!” Hinata replies. To his embarrassment, his eyes go a bit watery as he realizes how thoughtful Daichi is being. Thankfully, Daichi doesn’t seem to notice.

“Just keep it on the down low,” Daichi says half-teasingly. “I didn’t feel like buying for everyone this time around.”

“For sure. Thank you!”

Daichi laughs. “You’ve already said that.”

“Well… I’m thankful!”

He inhales one of the buns before riding home, his worries nearly forgotten. He says hello to his mom and apologizes to Natsu for running into her earlier, then sits cross-legged at his desk to study.

He’s been feeling more confident with his schoolwork recently, since his English is improving, but tonight he needs to work on math.

He works slowly but surely through his review problems for a while before hitting a wall. _Find the x-intercepts of this polynomial without using the quadratic formula._ He stares blankly at the polynomial. It doesn’t factor… right? It doesn’t look like it factors. But it must factor if he’s not supposed to use the quadratic formula. 

He plugs in a couple numbers that seem like they might be intercepts, but nothing works. 

Hinata sets his pencil down and rests his head in his hands. It’s literally one math problem. He has no reason to be this upset by it. And yet.

“Shoyo,” calls his mom from elsewhere in the house, “I ran the bath if you’d like to go first.”

“Sure, thank you,” Hinata replies. A bath sounds good. A bath sounds wonderful. Surely that will fix whatever has him so keyed up today.

The warm water does indeed help him calm down, but when he returns to his room with newly damp hair, the math work sitting on his desk sends a faint sense of dread through him. He stuffs it back in his bag. He can worry about math later.

Hinata’s stomach rumbles, and he belatedly remembers that he has another meat bun left. He fetches it from the bag and sits on the floor by his bed. 

Stuffing the bun in his mouth, he flicks his phone open to check for notifications. There’s nothing new, but Hinata suddenly recalls that he was talking to Kenma earlier today. Kenma responded so quickly the first time that Hinata is rather surprised that he hasn’t replied to Hinata’s most recent message. Hinata holds the bun in one hand as he rereads it.

_Sorry I don’t play hookie all the time like you ヽ(｀⌒´メ)ノ_

He was only teasing Kenma, but dread pools in his stomach anyway. He might’ve actually offended him, but surely it would seem weird if he apologized now. It hasn’t even been a day. He doesn’t want to guilt Kenma for not responding.

Instead, Hinata looks at Kageyama’s messages from this morning. They’re all asking where he is and when he’ll be at practice. He types and sends something quickly.

_Sorry for not replying earlier_

He stares at his phone for a couple minutes. No response. He glances at the meat bun, but he feels too nauseous to finish it. Instead, he puts it in the bag and places both in the trash can.

He’ll go to sleep early. Yeah, that will help. He’ll be better in the morning. 

After brushing his teeth, Hinata kicks off his pants and collapses onto the bed in his boxers, too lazy to change into anything else.

As he lays still on his back, it feels like there’s something pressing down on his ribs and creeping up his throat to choke him. He forces himself to take a deep breath.

He checks his phone for notifications three times before he decides impulsively to delete Line. With the app gone from his phone, he immediately feels a bit lighter. 

Hinata sets his phone on the nightstand and drifts off to sleep.

* * *

Hinata does feel marginally better in the morning. This time he does wake to his alarm, and he has more than enough time to eat and make it to practice. He nearly downloads Line again, but he doesn’t want to risk seeing no responses and getting upset all over again.

He rides his bike a sizable distance from civilization before letting out an unnecessarily loud yell as he glides downhill, attempting to disperse the leftover anxious energy buzzing in his muscles. 

The yell echoes back to him, and he nearly laughs.

Then he takes a turn too sharply and promptly falls on his right side. The gravel scrapes the side of his thigh, and his shoulder aches where he landed on it. 

Stunned, he sits there on the ground for several moments longer than necessary. 

Well, that wasn’t ideal. But he’s not actively bleeding, and in any case he doesn’t have bandages or anything of the sort with him, so he picks himself off the ground and cautiously continues the ride to school. 

At least he’s wearing shorts. A fall like that would’ve torn up his uniform slacks. 

Hinata doesn’t realize how much more slowly he’s going than usual until he shows up at the gym and realizes everyone has already begun to warm up. Another win for Kageyama, he thinks distantly. That makes them tied for now.

“Hinata!” Ukai says from the sidelines. He waves Hinata over to him.

“Coach, I’m sorry for being late,” Hinata says quickly, wringing his hands together. “And for yesterday.”

“You’re fine, kid,” Ukai says. “I wanted to make sure you’re doing alright.”

“Ah, yeah, I’m good.” Hinata shifts his weight from foot to foot, eager to finish this conversation. He had a single, mediocre day and both the coach and the captain noticed something was wrong. 

“Just don’t make a habit of being late, got it?”

Hinata’s face feels hot, and though the others are busy warming up, he’s certain everyone’s watching him. “Yes, sir,” he says, and hopes his voice doesn’t sound as shaky as it feels.

“Alright, go join the others.”

Most of the morning passes normally. Kageyama is still ignoring him, but Hinata can’t really find it in himself to care.

They end by drilling spikes, so Hinata quietly joins Kageyama’s line. When it’s his turn, Yachi tosses the ball up, Kageyama sets, and it’s only once Hinata’s midair that he realizes his shoulder is starting to ache. He hits the ball directly into the net. 

“What the heck was that?” Kageyama snaps. It’s the first thing he’s said to Hinata in nearly a day.

Hinata’s face heats up again. He’d nearly forgotten the tumble he took earlier, but apparently it’s finally catching up with him. “Sorry. I’ll go again.” He nods to Yachi. 

Now that he’s expecting his arm to feel sore, it’s easier to put it out of his head. He spikes successfully four times in a row, and on the fifth he misses the ball completely. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Yachi says as she receives the ball. “Let’s go again.”

Frustration bubbles up in his throat at the thought of going five more times before he can return to the end of the line. 

“I’m going to the restroom,” Hinata grumbles. He storms out of the gym, fully aware that he’s making a scene. 

He does not, in fact, go to the restroom. He walks around to the opposite side of the gymnasium from the doors, sits on the ground, and listens to the squeaking of shoes from inside the gym. Exhaling slowly, Hinata lets the tension drain from him.

Once he’s allowed himself to calm down, he feels rather embarrassed for rushing out just because he missed a toss—embarrassed enough that he very much does not want to return to practice. He figures he can mess around for a few more minutes until practice is over.

He’s focused so intensely on pulling at the grass around him that he doesn’t notice Daichi until he’s directly in front of him. 

Hinata startles and jumps to his feet, floundering for a sufficient excuse for why he was sitting outside the gym. “Uh, I—I was just going to—um.”

“Hinata,” Daichi interrupts. “It’s okay for you to take a second to yourself if you need it.”

“Ah.” Hinata picks at his fingernails. “Uh, thanks.”

“Are you alright? You disappeared pretty quickly. I was worried you got sick.”

Hinata’s first instinct is to snap at Daichi, but he bites it back. He’s getting really tired of people asking if he’s okay. “I’m not sick. I just got frustrated.” His voice goes suddenly weak and shaky, and he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have run out. I’ve just had… a not great couple of days.” 

“It’s really okay, man,” Daichi says, turning in the direction of the locker room. Hinata takes the hint and follows him. “Though, just so you know, I think you freaked Yachi out.”

Hinata winces. “Ah. I’ll talk to her later, then.”

When they make it to the lockers, the room is still semi-full, and Hinata wants desperately to melt into the floor and disappear. He dodges everyone’s gazes and makes his way to the corner of the room to change.

He’s one leg into his trousers when Kageyama says, “What’s that?”

Hinata finishes pulling on his pants and does a double take at Kageyama before realizing he’s talking to him. “Hm? What’s what?”

Kageyama gestures vaguely. “On your leg.”

“Huh?” Hinata tugs his waistband back down and spots the scrape up his thigh. “Oh, I fell off my bike earlier and skinned it.”

“And you didn’t say anything about it?” Kageyama asks incredulously. 

“Was I supposed to? It’s not even bleeding.” 

Kageyama squints, and Hinata glares back at him. “Did you get hurt anywhere else?” Kageyama asks.

“I’m fine,” Hinata grumbles, readjusting his pants and buttoning his jacket.

“Then rotate your right shoulder,” says Kageyama. He demonstrates by pinwheeling his arm. 

“What the heck? No,” says Hinata. “Leave me alone.”

“I can tell you’re favoring that arm.” 

“I’m not,” Hinata says. “And I said to leave me alone.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“Quit picking fights with me!” Hinata yells, and the rest of the locker room goes quiet. “I’m sick of it!”

“Hey!” says Daichi, putting a hand to Hinata’s chest as if to hold him back. “Both of you, cut it out.”

Kageyama mumbles an apology, gathers his things, and disappears from the room in the span of a few seconds. Hinata watches him go, then turns back to Daichi, but he and everyone else seems to have quickly forgotten him. To be fair, Hinata and Kageyama fighting is not a unique occasion.

As Hinata is double checking that his jacket is buttoned correctly this time, Yamaguchi says mildly, “Hinata, I don’t mean to overstep, but you should probably clean that scrape. Even if it isn’t bleeding, it could have dirt in it or something.”

“Right. Thanks, Yamaguchi,” says Hinata, forcing a smile. He goes to class without taking Yamaguchi’s advice.

In his morning classes, Hinata focuses marginally better than he did the previous day, since he at least ate today. Come lunchtime, he’s once again worrying that he upset Kageyama, but being the coward he is today, he rushes off to Yachi’s classroom before Kageyama can track him down. 

Yachi startles to an incredible degree when Hinata shows up in front of her desk.

“Hinata!” she exclaims. 

“Hi, Yachi-san,” Hinata says with a somewhat sheepish smile. He tugs a chair over to the side of her desk and sits. “I wanted to say sorry for running off this morning.”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize to me. I was worried about you, though. You were making a face like—oh, never mind. I don’t know.”

Hinata’s curiosity is piqued. “A face like what?”

“Um.” Yachi fidgets in place. “You know when you walked me home? After you and Kageyama fought?”

Hinata winces. “Ah, yeah.”

“Right before you rode off, you looked like you were going to cry. And you were making a similar face this morning.”

Hinata feels his face flush. “That’s—that’s not—um.”

“It’s not something to be embarrassed about,” Yachi quickly insists. “I was just wondering if… maybe you and Kageyama had an argument again.”

“We didn’t,” Hinata says, and Yachi lets out a reassured sigh. “It’s just that… I’ve been really short with him lately. So we’re getting along less than usual. And on top of that I’ve just had a rough two days. I fell off my bike this morning—that is, I’m fine, it just kinda shook me up. Really, nothing super bad has happened. I just feel bad. And it sucks.” His voice starts doing the weird shaky thing, and he clears his throat.

“You’re making the face again!” says Yachi.

“I know!” Hinata whines. He leans his elbows on Yachi’s desk and sets his face in his hands. He isn’t keen on crying in front of the entirety of class five, but his embarrassment is only making him feel even more like crying.

“Oh, gosh. Here,” says Yachi. She tugs on the collar of his jacket until his head is on her shoulder, and she puts her arm around him. “I’m sorry you’re having a rough time. It’s gonna be okay. You’ll be okay. But I know it feels bad right now.” 

And, yeah, Hinata is definitely teary-eyed now. “Your classmates are going to stare at you,” he sniffles.

“If you think any of my classmates pay attention to me or care about what I’m doing, you give me too much credit.”

Hinata laughs. “Do you not have any friends in this class?”

“Definitely not.”

“Woah, really? But you’re so cool!”

“I appreciate the flattery, but you may be alone in that opinion. It’s okay, though. You and Kageyama-kun and the other guys are my friends.”

Hinata sits up again and dabs at his eyes. “How are you this good at making people feel better?”

Yachi grins. “I’m an expert in being anxious and stressed.” 

Hinata snorts, then claps a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t laugh at that.”

“No, no, it’s okay to laugh,” Yachi says, laughing as well.

A few minutes before his next class starts, Hinata heads back to his classroom, and Kageyama stops him in the hallway. 

“Hinata,” Kageyama says, jogging after him.

Hinata tenses. “Kageyama.”

“Sorry for picking fights with you. I wasn’t really trying to, but, um.”

Hinata is caught halfway between being surprised at Kageyama’s apology and amused at how awkward he looks. “Oh, no, it’s okay. I’ve been… overly irritable.”

“Well. I’m sorry anyway.” Kageyama tugs uncomfortably at his sleeves. “Is your arm—leg actually okay?”

Hinata bites back a laugh. “Yes, my arm and leg are okay. I’ll probably just be sore for a couple days.”

Kageyama nods. “Have I… have I done anything else to upset you? Since you didn’t reply to my message last night. Not that you have to, I was just wondering.”

Hinata blinks. “No, I deleted Line last night, so I didn’t see any message.”

“Why’d you delete it?” Kageyama tilts his head, and Hinata has to remind himself that Kageyama isn’t trying to be hostile.

“Because… it was making me anxious, I guess?” 

Kageyama clearly doesn’t understand, but at the very least he doesn’t seem to be judgmental about it. “Okay. I, uh, we probably should get to class.”

As Hinata is returning to his seat, he grows more and more curious as to what Kageyama texted him last night, so he downloads Line again as he waits for the teacher to return.

He has a single message from Kageyama, responding to his short apology.

_It’s okay idiot_

Hinata rolls his eyes. Of course that’s all Kageyama would say.

He also has a couple recent messages from Kenma.

_haha very funny_

_i don’t skip that much, kuro would have my head_

_also kuro is reading over my shoulder and says hi_

Hinata slumps in his seat, relieved. He feels a little guilty for worrying that Kenma was upset with him. 

_Tell him I say hi too!!_


End file.
